


Someone Like You

by lyricaldanceflap



Category: Peter Kay's Car Share (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 02:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14125770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricaldanceflap/pseuds/lyricaldanceflap
Summary: Clearing out the drafts and I found this I wrote in August last year. I kept telling myself I'd add another chapter but it's not going to happen, so here's the incomplete version.Set immediately after 2x04, before we knew the finale would pick up the day after. Or before we knew about the finale at all. This is my idea of the ten minute conclusion I thought we were going to get. Enjoy!





	Someone Like You

John’s phone rang, brutally snapping him out of his daydream. He looked at the screen, daring to hope for a split second that Kayleigh was calling. A new wave of pain overcame him when he realised it wasn’t her. It felt like the final nail in the coffin.

“Hello?”

“John, it’s me. Where did you say that quiche was?” His nan’s gravelly voice came out of the car speakers.

“Erm…” It took him a moment to process what she’d asked him. He was finding it hard to take his eyes off the black cab in the distance, to think about anything other than the person inside it. “It’s in the fridge.”

The taxi moved off in the slowly clearing traffic. John felt sick to his stomach as he watched it go, watched _her_ go.

“Are you done?” His nan asked. 

He felt tears well up in his eyes at her choice of words. He realised she was just asking him whether he’d finished his shift, but the way he felt right now, like his whole world was falling apart around him, everything seemed to have a double meaning. 

“Yeah, I’m done.” He said it casually, the expression on his face being the only clear indication of how upset he was. 

His dad would’ve been able to tell straight away that something wasn’t right, just by listening to his voice. However, since his dad passed, he’d been able to hide his emotions away from everyone. Up until a few months ago anyway. Until Kayleigh. 

She, like his dad, had a particular talent for being able to tell when he was upset about something, whether it be by simply talking to him on the phone, or watching his subtle facial expressions as he talked about something that was bothering him. She knew when he was upset; when to ask why, when to leave it alone. At least, that’s what he’d thought until now. 

He sighed as a memory from a few weeks ago came to him.

_“Do you not get on with your Paul?” She’d asked, on a rare occasion they had the staff breakroom to themselves._

_He blinked at her. He should’ve known better than to be shocked by her forwardness by now, but he always was._

_“He’s me brother, I suppose we get on alright.” He paused to have a drink of his coffee. “Why? What’s made you ask that?”_

_She looked back down at her magazine, obviously thinking she had the wrong end of the stick. “Oh, nothing. Doesn’t matter, I just wondered.”_

_“No, come on, you can’t leave me hanging like that. Was it summat I said?”_

_“It wasn’t what you said, it was the way you said it.” She explained, flipping a page._

_“Go on…”_

_“On the way in, you were on about having to run around for your nan all week because your Paul had stuff on with his job and that. I just got the impression he makes excuses to push stuff onto you. Thought you seemed pissed off about it, that’s all.”_

_He watched her as she concentrated too hard on whatever it was she was reading about, shocked. He’d mentioned Paul once on their journey into work that morning and he was more than surprised she’d got all that from a quick comment he’d made._

_She looked up._

_“What? Why are you looking at me like that? I was wrong, wasn’t I, I’m-“_

_“No, no you’re not wrong. You’re right, he does do that.”_

_She broke into a grin so bright he nearly choked on his Rich Tea. “Knew it. I can read you like a book, Johnathan.”_

He blinked, coming out of his thoughts and back to the present. She was gone now, too, and although she’d only been out of his car for about five minutes, his heart ached at the cold emptiness she left behind. 

“John? Are you still there?”

His nan sounded like she was getting impatient and he couldn’t blame her really. She’d been stuck in his house all day with only the television for company. 

“Yeah, I’m here, nana. I’ll be with you in about twenty minutes, okay?”

She grumbled her response and hung up the phone. John was still staring ahead blankly when an annoyed driver behind him beeped. The traffic in his lane had started moving forward, not that he’d noticed until now. 

He blinked the tears from his eyes, swallowed the lump in his throat, and started moving forward with the rest of his lane.

Progress.

-

It was after a further ten minutes of crawling along at a snail’s pace down the packed road that John realised how quickly he and Kayleigh’s argument had been blown out of proportion. They’d been cooped up in the small car together; hot, frustrated, and stuck at a standstill in more ways than one. The timing couldn’t have been worse and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to put it right as soon as he possibly could. 

Kayleigh loved him, he loved her, and as he slowly made his way down the road, he was determined to make sure she knew just how much she meant to him. Bollocks to waiting until he picked her up for work in the morning. The thought of her upset and alone all night made his stomach lurch and he was filled with a determination he didn’t realise he was capable of to make things right. 

He’d said some terrible things in the heat of the moment, partly to stall for time so that she’d hear the radio announcement, and partly out of fear, but he was going to apologise. He was going to try his best to make it up to Kayleigh. 

Traffic finally started picking up to a normal speed as he tried to get through to her. He called three times, unsurprised but disheartened as it went to voicemail each time. John decided against leaving a message as he knew by now that she was more than stubborn enough to ignore him if that’s what she’d decided to do. Instead, he sent her a quick text, knowing that even though her phone was an older model, it still showed the first few words of the message. Hopefully she’d see those first few words flash up on her screen, and curiosity would get the better of her. 

_Please talk to me. I’m so sorry about what happened in the car, I want to make things right._

He hoped that would be enough to put her mind at rest for now, but a niggling voice in the back of his mind told him he had do something more, and fast.

John dialled another number.

Paul picked up on the third ring.

“You alright, John, what’s up?”

“No, I’m not alright. Listen, I need a favour.” John paused and muttered under his breath. “Be a first, mind.”

Surprisingly, Paul was all ears.

“Go on, what’s up?”

“I need to you get nana from mine and drop her back at hers. Oh, and lock up after yourself, you’ve still got a key, haven’t you?”

“Look, I would but I’m-“

“Paul, listen buddy, this is important, alright? If I could do it myself, I would.”

Paul must have heard the desperation in his brother’s voice as he stopped his usual act of trying to worm his way out of anything John asked him to do and suddenly sounded concerned.

“What’s up, John?” 

“Look, there’s nothing to worry about, I just really need to be somewhere.” 

“But-“

John rolled his eyes as his brother tried to jump in with another question. “You’ll be the first to know when it’s all sorted, trust me.”

With that, he ended the call and focused on the road. He had to see Kayleigh, to explain why he’d acted the way he did in the car, and it’d be no good for either of them if he didn’t get there in one piece. 

-

When John pulled up to Kayleigh’s he was surprised to see that the driveway was – thankfully – empty. No bike, no Steve, and no Mandy’s Citroen. After his initial optimism about the fact Kayleigh’s family wouldn’t interrupt what he had to say, he had another thought that made his heart clench in his chest.

She’d come home to an empty house. 

If the state she was in when she’d left his car was anything to go by, she’d have probably been in tears, with no one to talk to when she returned to the house she had no choice but to call home. Just thinking about it broke John’s heart.

He parked, switched off the engine, and walked up to the front door. He had to make it up to the woman he loved, there was no time to waste. 

He knocked. Waited. There was no answer and after about a minute John wondered whether he should knock again. Just as he was about to, he realised he could hear music coming from inside. He could hear it fairly well from his place on the doorstep, so whoever was inside obviously had it turned up to an impressive volume. It _had_ to be Kayleigh; Steve and Mandy’s vehicles were missing, and Chloe and Alfie were too young to be at home by themselves. 

John knocked again harder and shouted, “Kayleigh, it’s me!”

The music went down ever so slightly, he was sure it did, but then again it could’ve just been his imagination. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, planning to try to call her again. 

Just as he was scrolling to her name in his contacts, the front door was finally pulled open and he jumped at the unexpected noise, his head immediately snapping up towards her.

His jaw dropped. “What the…”

Someone Like You by Adele blasted out from the industrial sized speakers that must’ve been hidden somewhere in the house. But that wasn’t what had shocked John the most.

Kayleigh was stood there slightly breathless in her pyjamas; dark blue bottoms decorated with little moons and stars, a white long sleeved t shirt, and fluffy bed socks. Her face was bare of any makeup, and she’d taken her extensions out, piling her own hair on top of her head in a messy bun. She had a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in one hand, a spoon handle just visible over the top of the lid, and an excitable looking Yorkshire Terrier tucked under her other arm.

“You’ve only…” John looked down at his watch, utterly baffled. “You’ve only been home half an hour?”

She stared at him for a few seconds, a completely unreadable expression on her face. John concluded that she didn’t look angry, just sad, and that was almost worse really, in his opinion. But he was sure he could see a glimmer of hope in her expression, and all he could do for a moment was stare back. Until Misty tried to launch herself out of Kayleigh’s hold to greet John, bringing the moment to an end.

John couldn’t help a small smile as Kayleigh broke eye contact to adjust her hold on the dog. 

“Why are you here, John?”

He took a deep breath. “To talk, to apologise for the things I said earlier. None of it was true.”

“Then why did you say it? I told you I…” Kayleigh narrowed her eyes at something over John’s shoulder and he turned, noticing the living room blinds moving in the house opposite. Kayleigh’s voice was lower the next time she spoke. “I told you I _love_ you and you said I was living in a fairy tale.”

“Well, that’s not exactly what happe-“

“John! Can we do this inside? I feel like I’ve got the eyes of the entire street on me talking to you on the doorstep like this.”

He nodded, casting one more glance over his shoulder at the house opposite before Kayleigh moved back from the door, allowing him to step into the hall. He closed the door behind him, the sound of Adele blasting from upstairs even louder now the outside world had been shut out. 

“Surprised you haven’t got an ASBO for that.” John remarked.

Kayleigh bent to set Misty down on the floor and he swore he could see her trying to hide a smile.

“I’ll go and turn it off,” She said. “And then I’ll make us a brew.”

John couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as he watched Kayleigh walk upstairs, Misty obediently trotting after her. For a while there in the car, he’d thought he’d blown it for good. 

Now was his chance to make it right.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: lyricaldanceflap


End file.
